Another rush into the whirling, eddying smoke, another search along under the wall, and presently in the flickering light the rescuing pair came upon a barrier of barley-sacks, burning in places from huge flakes of fire falling from the blazing rafters of the overhanging shed, and behind this, senseless, suffocated, helplessly bound, two other forms.  Thrusting the sacks aside, the troopers seized and dragged forth their hapless fellow-creatures.  Jarred by sudden pressure, a burning upright snapped.  There was a crackling, crashing sound, and down came the rafters, sending another column of flame to light up the features of men rescued not an instant too soon from the death that awaited them.

“My God!” cried Sergeant Lee, “this is old Feeny,—­and yet alive.”

Together the two raised the senseless form, bore it out into the open space, laid it gently beside their first discovery, and ran back for the next, a big, heavy, bulky shape in loose and blood-stained garments.  It took all their strength to lug it forth.  Then the lieutenant bent by the side of the slowly recovering civilian.

“Are there any more we can reach?” he questioned eagerly, his heart beating madly.

“No,—­too late!—­others were inside when the roof fell in.  More water,—­more water!”

Sergeant Lee sprang to the ollas, gleaming there in the fire-light, and brought back a brimming dipper, holding it to the poor fellow’s parched lips until he could drink no more, then slashing away the thongs with which he was bound.

“This is Greaser work,” he cried.  “How could they have left you alive?  Where are Moreno’s people?  Who’s done this, anyhow?”

“Pasqual Morales.  Moreno was in it, too.  ’Twas the paymaster they were laying for; but they’ve killed Ned Harvey and got his sisters,—­old Harvey’s children—­from Tucson.”

“What?” cried the officer, leaping to his feet.  “Harvey’s daughters here?—­here?  Man, are you mad?”

“It’s God’s truth!  Oh, if I had a drop of the whiskey that’s being burned in there!  I’m nigh dead.”

“Run to my saddle-bags, Lee; fetch that flask, quick; then call in the men and send one back to hurry up the rest.  Where have they gone?  What have they done with their captives?”

“God knows!  I could hear them screaming and praying,—­those poor girls!  Mullan and the pay-clerk picked up Feeny after he was stunned and they rushed him back through here, where the paymaster had dragged himself, to where you found him.  That—­that’s the paymaster you’ve got there.  Then they tried to save a drunken soldier while all the gang seemed crowding after the safe and the girls, but they were shot down inside, and must have burned to death if they wasn’t killed.  Oh, God, what a night!” And weak, unstrung, unmanned, the poor fellow sobbed aloud.

At this instant there rode into the corral a couple of troopers.

“Lieutenant Drummond here?” cried one of them.  “We’ve found a man out on the plain to the southeast, gagged and bound.  Shall we fetch him in?”